Design as freedom

Creating a perfect world is most likely impossible; however, it can be generally agreed that the world we live in can be better. Designers can potentially make an important contribution to this quest, given that design is about imagining and achieving better futures. This thesis is primarily concerned with advancing the moral groundings of design and with assessing good design by prioritising what is right, regarding whether it contributes to making the world better. This book introduces Design as Freedom, an alternative driving principle for design, which is based on philosophical elaboration, and it also proposes the Aalto LAB meta-framework as a method of putting it into practice. This research has constantly looped from theory to practice, so that the alternative driving principle and the method have been fundamental in building each other. As a case of constructive design research, where knowledge is generated through design, four different things have been constructed, providing four different lenses to Design as Freedom: an alternative driving principle for design, a design process, a pedagogic programme, and the researcher’s personal journey (setting up and implementing Aalto LAB Mexico). In my view, design is constrained by the idea of progress as coined during the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution, where betterment is expressed through a positive exponential curve. In the course of time, economic growth became the unquestioned primary goal of nations, organisations, and individuals; however, this goal has yet to be reasonably justified. Design as Freedom challenges the traditional assumption that design is an economically and technologically driven activity. In contrast, it embraces the diverse ways of life that different people might have reason to value. Design as Freedom is a reasoned alternative, a highly complex practice in which socially committed designers co-design with people who are acknowledged to be living in clear situations of injustice. Within Design as Freedom, co-design becomes a longitudinal process and a mutually enabling activity for designers and for participant end-users. Additionally, with the aim of keeping environmental sustainability at the forefront, I propose making use of assemblage thinking as a framework that explicitly expresses the intricate relationship between humans and non-humans, and simultaneously enables the imagining of new human–non-human relationships. Therefore, this is a Kantian conception of freedom, which is tightly related to the concepts of reason and morality. In this case, Sustainability sets the moral limits that constrain human freedoms. The assemblage also enables the understanding of freedom as a triad (following Gerald MacCallum, 1967), where an agent has an intention and there are no constraints preventing its achievement. In other words, freedom is envisioning a new assemblage, it means being able to identify which new relationships must be created as a means to overcome the barriers that made them unfree. I argue that this type of design practice can be equated with exercising freedom. Mainly due to the conjunction of circumstances, Design as Freedom was put into practice through a project called Aalto LAB Mexico (ALM). ALM is based on a project that took place in 2010, called Aalto LAB Shanghai. ALM takes place in a Mayan community called 20 de Noviembre (El 20), located in Calakmul, Campeche, Mexico, a highly marginalised area, which is also highly biologically diverse. An interdisciplinary team of students (labbers) from Aalto University, Tecnológico de Monterrey Campus Ciudad de México, and Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México are mentored by an equally interdisciplinary team of experts who belong to either the public, private, or third sector, or to academia; and all their processes are facilitated by expert designers. The labbers have collaborated with people from El 20, and have generated several Sustainable Product Service System (S.PSS) types of projects, which have reached different phases within the design process (diagnosis, conceptualisation, implementation, evaluation). Each of the projects has the potential to expand people’s freedoms and thus reduce injustice. ALM added a pedagogic dimension to the exploration of Design as Freedom; however, rather than seeing this as a constraint, it is seen as an opportunity. Nearly three decades have passed since the term ‘Sustainability’ was coined, and whilst the world has not changed dramatically, it can be observed that a growing number of young design students, herein called the Children of Brundtland, demand more meaningful professions. When study programmes prepare students to exclusively satisfy the needs of industry and pursue the goal of economic growth, the Children of Brundtland, who do not share the idea that economic growth is the highest end, experience a clear case of injustice. The pedagogic dimension required an extensive focus on the designers’ freedoms, which for its part enabled the observation of what we have called the double-sided mirror perspective. The design team and the people of El 20 learned about a design process that could deliver freedom (the S.PSS). Moreover, they also experienced the design process as a mutually enabling experience. The people of El 20 gain awareness and experience in tackling their own problems. The design team gains the effective opportunity to exercise a type of professional practice that they have reason to value. My own journey constructing ALM is a case of Design as Freedom, which enabled me to experience life in accordance with my own rational plan. The Design as Freedom principle presented in the first part of the book was constructed in response to what was observed in practice throughout the longitudinal journeys of the design team, the people of El 20, and myself. In the second part of the book, throughout these experiences, the Design as Freedom principle is put into practice. If profit-making was left aside, design could possibly do much more; Design as Freedom is just one reasoned alternative. Conceiving an initial situation as an assemblage enables designers to keep environmental considerations at the forefront of the process, and it also inspires desirable and feasible visions of the future. Moreover, by conceiving communities as assemblages, it could be possible to envision a wide array of alternative ways of living, which is probably what is needed before achieving a sustainable world. Many cases developed by designers and design researchers worldwide prove that designers have the skills required to make the world better; which is also the source of a great moral responsibility. Thus, I maintain that designers should not discriminate against any type of potential end-user, and that design should incorporate the most urgent matters of the world into its research agenda, and contribute to global justice

Design as freedom in practice

This book is produced in cooperation with the Research Centre for Industrial Design of the School of Architecture in the National Autonomous University of Mexico.This work explores freedom as an alternative driving principle for design. Based on philosophical discussions, freedom is seen as tightly linked to morality, leaving room for sustainability, which for its part, is understood as a moral ideal that implies justice in the environmental and social spheres. The model of assemblage is introduced as a unit of study, which enables the treatment of users and their environments to be the initial situation for a design intervention. By generating new relationships among elements, a better assemblage is achieved. The Design as Freedom principle is observed in practice through a project called Aalto LAB Mexico (ALM). ALM is developed in a marginalised, rural, indigenous community in the municipality of Calakmul, in the state of Campeche, Mexico. ALM identified the emergence of a double-sided mirror perspective, in which the design team and the participant end-users reciprocally inspire each other to reflect deeply, and assess and even change their own ways of life. Design as Freedom is a longitudinal co-design process that aims for the mutual empowerment of participant end-users and designers

Presentación

En este volumen número 27, de la Revista Kepes, del período enero-junio 2023, se presentan contribuciones que respondieron al llamado “Diseños otros y transiciones hacia el pluriverso”, que exhortaba a la comunidad latinoamericana dedicada a las prácticas proyectuales y creativas, a impulsar diseños otros, orientados a regenerar las relaciones que se tejen entre las personas y también las que las comunidades tejen con sus entornos. Los diseños otros que logramos recolectar aquí, parten de una noción de la sostenibilidad que trasciende al antropocentrismo y enfocan sus esfuerzos a trabajar colaborativamente con comunidades locales, con el fin de abordar problemáticas complejas y abrir espacios para vislumbrar juntos futuros más alentadores. El fin último es lograr un modo pluriversal de habitar este planeta, que valore primordialmente la diversidad natural y cultural y que cultive el respeto tanto por el mundo propio como por los otros que podrían no serlo

El Diseño como Libertad en práctica

Este libro es producido en cooperación con Facultad de Arquitectura, Centro de Investigaciones de Diseño IndustrialEste trabajo explora el concepto de libertad como un principio rector alternativo para la práctica del diseño. A través de un lente filosófico, la libertad se comprende en cercana relación con la moralidad, haciendo espacio para la sustentabilidad, que en sí es entendida como una idea moral que involucra justicia en las esferas sociales y ambientales. Introducimos el modelo del ensamblaje como unidad de estudio, que habilita el tratamiento de usuarios y el medio ambiente como situación inicial para una intervención de diseño. Al generar nuevas relaciones entre las partes, alcanzamos un mejor ensamblaje. El diseño como libertad en práctica se observa en la práctica a través de un proyecto llamado Aalto Lab México (ALM), desarrollado en una comunidad rural y marginal del municipio de Calakmul en el estado de Campeche, México. ALM identificó el surgimiento de una colaboración y ayuda mutua entre usuarios y el equipo de diseño donde conjuntamente se reflexionó profundamente e inspiraron el uno al otro, meditaron y cambiaron sus formas de vivir. El Diseño como libertad en práctica es un proceso de co-diseño longitudinal que se enfoca en el empoderamiento mutuo de usuarios participantes y diseñadores

Benefits of design practice in fieldwork: How ‘Artesanía para el Bienestar’ emerged in the field as a concept to Improve access to Healthcare in a Mayan Community in Campeche, Mexico

Design, as a discipline can make significant contributions through framing complex issues. This paper explores the values that design practice can offer in the field that cannot be created from a distance with a traditional solution seeking process. This paper presents research showing the benefit of having designers in the field and is based on a project taking place in a Mayan-community in Campeche, Mexico where design thinking was utilized as a tool for achieving sustainable societal change and increasing proactive planning in the community; specifically by generating concepts for improving healthcare. The case study herein presented, ´Artesanía para el Bienestar` (Artistry for Wellbeing) includes fieldwork that took place in the community in 2013. The goal of the fieldwork was to find solutions to increase the community´s access to healthcare and to involve a specific group of stakeholders, artisans, to this process of developing the future of the community. The essence of this paper is not to examine the result of the design process in regard to concepts and solutions created around the topic of healthcare, rather it presents the values and multiple benefits a design process in the field can bring apart from the “end-result” solutions. This case study contributes to the discussion of the role of design, and encourages designers to try new possibilities and directions in design. To achieve sustainable societal change, these aspects of design should be considered and recognized as values in future projects. Research in emergent areas such as social design and social innovation need to grow to support this process. Fuad-Luke (2013) argue that the potential of design research work to lever positive change is significant if it can move beyond the confines of academic discourse, scale up, and find mutually interested partners for these projects to capture the popular imagination

Designing future experiences of the everyday

It is critical now that we direct all our efforts at transitions to post-carbon and sustainable futures. Currently, transitions are mostly handled by select expert groups who generate transition visions, scenarios and pathways, feed their findings into policy-making processes, thereby locking-in “futures” on behalf of the wider public. Scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds are searching for more effective means to engage and empower citizens to effectively comprehend and actively take part in futuring processes. Experiential futures is an emerging field that connects experience design and futures studies. Experiential scenarios aim to create real memories of virtual events so that alternative futures can be understood and deliberated better by publics. This article maps contributions belonging to different disciplinary fields (including speculative design, literature studies, and psychology) to explore the means by which the everyday in futures could be virtually or vicariously experienced, aiming to contribute into the theoretical and methodological base of experiential futures. Our findings suggest that people's ability for being immersed into a story is positively correlated with their empathic capacity. Immersion seems to be most successfully achieved when the experience shares some level of familiarity with people's everyday reality and when the narrative is logically convincing. In addition, our findings indicate that avid fiction readers are more easily immersed in alternative scenarios than those who are not. Our findings have significant implications for designing future experiences of the everyday, therefore, on theory and methods of sustainability transitions.Peer reviewe

Genetic and ecomorphological divergence between sympatric Astyanax morphs from Central America

Intraspecific ecological and morphological polymorphism can promote ecological speciation and the build-up of reproductive isolation. Here, we evaluate correlations among morphology, trophic ecology and genetic differentiation between two diver- gent morphs (elongate and deep-body) of the fish genus Astyanax in the San Juan River basin in Central America, to infer the putative evolutionary mechanism shaping this system. We collected the two morphs from three water bodies and analysed: (1) the correlation between body shape and the shape of the premaxilla, a relevant trophic morphological structure, (2) the trophic level and niche width of each morph, (3) the correspondence between trophic level and body and premaxillary shape, and (4) the genetic differentiation between morphs using mitochondrial and nuclear markers. We found a strong correlation between the body and premaxillary shape of the morphs. The elongate-body morph had a streamlined body, a premaxilla with acuter angles and a narrower ascending process, and a higher trophic level, characteristic of species with predatorial habits. By contrast, the deep-body morph had a higher body depth, a premaxilla with less acute angles and a broader trophic niche, suggesting generalist habits. Despite the strong correlation between morphological and ecological diver- gence, the morphs showed limited genetic differentiation, supporting the idea that morphs may be undergoing incipient ecological speciation, although alternative sce- narios such as stable polymorphism or plasticity should also be considered. This study provides support for the role of ecological factors promoting diversification in both lake and stream-dwelling freshwater fish.CGA was funded by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, México (CONACYT). We thank for the support from PAPIIT, UNAM, Project number IN212419, for sequencing and field trip

TiUD 2020: la emergencia de relaciones significativas durante el distanciamiento social

During 2020, the struggle against Covid-19 virus became the common emergency that disrupted all spheres of human life; it also pushed the transition of education to digitalization. The Inter-university Design Workshop (TiUD by its acronym in Spanish) faced the challenge of sustaining its solidly framed attributes and objectives since its foundation in 2018: Design as a transformational tool towards just and sustainable futures, learned through deep experiences in real contexts, which enable students to assume their roles as agents of change in their communities both individually and collectively. In order to evaluate the fulfilment of these goals and to identify possible advantages and disadvantages of TiUD’s online version, the research team inquired into the perceptions of teachers and students through a mixed methodology (revision of TiUD’s documents, polls, group interviews, and participant observation). It is concluded that, although this was not perceived as the best mode, the online TiUD enabled the development of meaningful relationships and deep learning-teaching experiences that respond to the context, suggesting that its optimal version would combine virtual and in-person sessions. It was especially identified that, given that the facilitation of socialization was perceived as tiud’s most valuable attribute, in times of social distancing, it might be beneficial to include these dynamics in every educational experience.En el 2020, la batalla contra el virus Covid-19 fue la emergencia común que perturbó todos los ámbitos de la vida humana; y que precipitó la transición de la educación hacia la digitalización. El Taller Interuniversitario de Diseño (TiUD) enfrentó el desafío de sostener sus atributos y objetivos, planteados sólidamente desde su fundación en 2018: el Diseño como una herramienta transformadora hacia futuros justos y sostenibles, aprendido a través de experiencias profundas en contextos reales, que permiten a las estudiantes asumirse individual y colaborativamente como agentes de cambio en sus comunidades. Para evaluar el cumplimiento de estos objetivos e identificar posibles ventajas y desventajas del TiUD en línea, el equipo investigador indagó en las percepciones de docentes y estudiantes mediante una metodología mixta (revisión de documentos del TiUD, encuestas, entrevistas grupales y observación participante). Se concluye que, aunque éste no es percibido como el mejor esquema, el TiUD virtual permitió el desarrollo de relaciones significativas y de experiencias profundas de aprendizaje-enseñanza que responden al contexto. Sugieren que la versión óptima combinaría sesiones virtuales y presenciales. Especialmente, se identifica que, dado que la facilitación de la socialización es el atributo más valorado por las estudiantes, sería beneficioso incluirla en cualquier experiencia educativa durante el distanciamiento social